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I have to say, though, with GWB and earlier, I don’t think they were thinking about the running out of oil aspect, I think they were almost entirely thinking about the “foreign” aspect. And I don’t think George HW was thinking at all.

My recollection is that the ground-breaking tax cuts of the Nixon years, coupled with restrained spending, was responsible for eventually recovering from the economic debacle of the spend-it-all Carter years. President Bush Sr. continued that economic policy – as did President Clinton for the first 7 1/2 years, until he started paying off political debts and destabilized things for his successor, President Bush, Jr. I have long considered the continuation of Reagan’s economic policies the single most significant accomplishment of the Clinton administration (up until the last six months). Except his ratcheting-up of the Community Reinvestment Act – i.e., subprime loans – was the direct cause of the 2008 mortgage reselling market collapse.

The only thing Jon Stewart missed on his Presidential comparisons, was the uncanny way B. Hussein Obama continues to posit the same policies that drove inflation to 25% under Jimmy Carter. Why would anyone be surprised that what wrecked the economy for Carter will wreck it again for B. Hussein Obama?

Brad K. @ # 3: My recollection is that the ground-breaking tax cuts of the Nixon years, coupled with restrained spending, was responsible for eventually recovering from the economic debacle of the spend-it-all Carter years.

They have all sorts of drugs for memory problems now, or so I hear. Maybe you could get a prescription to help you remember a “peace dividend” (though the term wasn’t in much use then) which happened about that time.

Don’t know if there are any medications good for such as severe case of wrong-about-everything-osis as yours, alas.

His controls on the price of crude oil is pretty much what gave us huge gas lines in 1974 and then again in 79 as the Embargo and then Iran impacted wholesale crude markets.

Contrast that with 2008 and other more contemporary times when crude oil got dear – the prices of gasoline and diesel went way up, but outright shortages were fairly nill, excepting when a pipeline servicing the Southeast failed.

(Carter actually phased out Nixon’s price controls on crude oil and gas. Google “windfall profits tax Carter” for more on that. Reagan, once he got in office, signed into law an acceleration of the timetable for Carter’s price decontrols. But it all started under Nixon.)

What actually got us out of the stagflation recessions of the Nixon, Ford, and Carter years was new, cheap, world (especially North Sea) and Alaskan oil temporarily rescuing the US from its own national peak oil calamity, though many credit Reagan and his tax cuts (Google “Kemp Roth” for more on that.) Reagan was actually a huge beneficiary of Alaska and North Sea oil coming on line, along with the delayed effects of some real energy conservation efforts (such as people buying high MPG cars in the few years leading up to the 1980 election.) He will always get the credit, though I think he just lucked out at being at the right place and the right time when it came to world oil markets.

Reagan also hugely benefited from having tens of millions of American Baby Boomers enter their prime productive and earning years right as he came into office.

This isn’t to take away from all the tough stances he took on human rights with the USSR – something I loved, but he was just plain lucky on economic and energy issues in my opinion.

Of course the thing is, there is no where else to turn now that the WORLD has suffered its own peak oil. Unlike in the 1980s, there will be no Alaska, no North Sea, no ramped up Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc. to produce oil enough to get the world economy rolling again.

People think that we just have to cut taxes and everything will be fine, ala Reagan.

Well, I do agree that we have a huge class of unproductive people that aren’t done any favors by entitlements, and as a person that works with lots of people and families, crippled in my opinion by such handouts, I DO think taxes and entitlements could be scaled back (sorry Sharon, et al), but such cuts alone will not begin to bring us back to the 1980s and 90s. The problem underlying all of our current economic problems is the end of easy, cheap oil.

What actually got us out of the stagflation recessions of the Nixon, Ford, and Carter years was new, cheap, world (especially North Sea) and Alaskan oil temporarily rescuing the US from its own national peak oil calamity

Hehe… Yup, over here in the UK too, there’s this tendency to talk about the ’80s “recovery” as if it was a result of politics, rather than finding a massive hoard of buried treasure.